Word Wenches

Summer's Splendors

Cara/Andrea here . . .Wondering where the summer went!
In the U.S., this Labor Day long weekend traditionally marks the end of the kick-back lazy days of beach reading, country walking and just plain relaxing. As more and more of us are finding life becoming increasingly frenetic, with the demands on our time pressing in from every angle, this interlude where we’re given tacit permission to “turn off” the usual pace is becoming more and more cherished  . . .

THE SPARKY REPORT #46

We're back! After being grounded last week by a sneaky virus that bypassed my antivirus program, I'm just now getting back into action. In the meantime, while I was virtually computerless, I had plenty of time to take pictures. Sparky being such a handy subject, most of my pictures were of her. And because no grass grows under Sparky's restless feet, she presented me with plenty of opportunities for photographing her.

For instance, there's the time she stole the grapes I was snacking on at my desk.

Oh my, what have we here?

 

What a nice shape! Let me just pluck one of these things and see if it'll make a good toy.

 

I think I'll sneak this grape past Mom and play with it under the desk.

 

All tuckered out playing with the grapes. Think I'll just take a quick catnap under Mom's desk

So . . . did Sparky like the taste of those grapes? Luckily, she didn't, though they were fun to bat around. I say "luckily," because you should not feed grapes or raisins to your cat or dog. They're toxic to pets and can cause kidney failure. I needn't worry about Sparky, though. When I asked her if she liked the taste of the grapes, this was her reaction:

Grapes? Yuck!

 

 

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The Sparky Report #45

What We're Reading in August

Joanna here with a look at What the Wenches are Reading this recent little time here.

Me -- I’ve got a couple of books toI recommend.  First off is the non-fiction Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners by Josephine Ross.  While it’s one of many books that look at Regency customs and manners through the lens of Jane Austen’s works, this one is particularly readable and correct.  

Second book up for a recomment is Catherine DeLors’ For the King. Historical Fiction, here, rather than Historical Romance. It’s an atmospheric novel set in 1800 based upon an attempt on Napoleon’s life. Fun even for those not fascinated by the period.

And, finally, a bit of an outlier.  I’m reading a new-to-me paranormal author, Ben Aaronovitch. (You will probably find him in the upper left hand corner of the bookshop shelves.)  The work is titled Midnight Riot which seems to have nothing to do with the plot at all.  This is a police procedural set in Modern day London when part of police work is dealing with murderous magic.  Very funny voice. Well done.

Andrea says:

I’m finally settling back into a normal routine after all the upheaval of moving earlier this summer. And as usual, I’m doing my ying and yang style of reading. For fiction, I’ve gone back to a book I set aside the first time I tried it—the backstory on that is I recently spent the day with my roommates from college, and as we’re all avid readers, the book recommendations were flying fast and furious (As were our fingers! Everyone was busy typing TBR lists on their i-phones!) Wolf Hall was mentioned, and I said I had given up on it, whereupon I was implored to give it another go, and assured that I would end up loving it. So I am. I want to love it—and I’m warming up to it, but the style/voice is still hard going for me. But I vow to stick it out. (How did everyone else feel about it?)

For non-fiction, I’m reading a very entertaining history of the Age of Fighting Sail entitled Broadsides, by Nathan Miller, which covers the time period between the American Revolution and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s very well-written, and along with detailed descriptions of the battles, it highlights the personalities of the captains and admirals, and gives a fascinating picture of life aboard a British warship.

From Nicola we have:  

This month I have been reading The Silkworm, JK Rowling’s second crime novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I enjoy a good old-fashioned whodunit and the first two books in the Cormoran Strike series have been great – intricately plotted, clever, and with some well drawn characters. I am enjoying the way that the relationship between Cormoran, the rather eccentric PI and Robin, his feisty sidekick, is developing and the hints of romance between the two of them. The Silkworm is particularly fun as it’s set in the writing world and contains some very sharp observations about authors, agents and publishers!
 
In contrast I’ve also been reading Prince Rupert, The Last Cavalier, a biography of Prince Rupert of the Rhine by Charles Spencer. It’s background reading for my current book and although I’ve read it before I’m finding it equally interesting the second time around. Charles Spencer paints a vivid picture of a fascinating man.

Pat says:

Argh, I’m reading old manuscripts, attempting to ready them for e-book production. I think all that editing late in the evening has jaded my reading for pleasure. I picked up Susanna Kearsley’s The Winter Sea, a fabulously written book with meticulous historical detail, set in Scotland in both contemporary time and early 1700s. But once I saw where the history was headed, I skipped to the end because there was only one way that story was going to unfold. Apparently I’ve lost the ability to lose myself in the story.

So now I’m reading a Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line mystery by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham. If you’ve never seen the TV show— it’s about a teen struggling with some serious angst while helping her father in his private detective work. I wish we had more shows where the sex and violence is minimal, and the characters and stories are so well developed. The book starts ten years after the TV story, after Veronica has earned a law degree. It sounds just like the show, catches us up on old characters, and is a good strong mystery. Now I need to hunt another distraction that I won’t be editing in my head ...

Anne here:
First up for me is Eloisa James's  Three Weeks with Lady X. I think it's now my favorite of all her books, just beating When Beauty Tamed the Beast.  The banter between the hero and heroine is witty and delightful, with some laugh out loud chuckles along the way, and the sizzle builds beautifully to a delicious climax. My only problem with the book is that I bought it as an e-book and now I'll have to get it in hard copy as I know it's one I want on my keeper shelf.

Another historical I enjoyed recently was Mary Balogh's A Secret Affair. On the plane home I devoured Juliet Marillier's Raven Flight, the second in her YA fantasy series that started with Shadowfell. I  can't wait for the third in this series. After that I read Kristan Higgins's Waiting For You, a lovely, fun, contemporary small town romance.


Susan here:  Like Nicola, I'm also reading The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (aka JKR), and very much enjoying it. The first one, The Cuckoo's Calling, was a great read, and turned me into a Cormoran Strike fan. I love the flaws in this British gumshoe, his honest if chaotic lifestyle, his laid-back wit and depth of intelligence, and the novels have many interesting layers of character and story.

I'm also reading The Moor, another in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King. I'm way behind in reading this series, and I've only just started this one so don't have much to say, except that I liked the first three Russell-Holmes books (Beekeeper's Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment and A Letter from Mary) so much that I am continuing. While that's hardly unusual for some, it's highly unusual for me. I am not much for keeping up with a series - but so far, so good! King likes King. What can I say. ;)

 

So that's the reading round-up for this month. 

What are you reading? What are you excited about in the world of literature.

One reader drawn from the comment thread will win any one of my books they desire, (including the not-yet-released Rogue Spy ... though you'll have to wait six weeks or so till they send me my copies.)

 

Spicing Up the Regency

Joanna here.

 I was fumbling through my spice shelf the other day, as one does, trying to decide whether I wanted to make some kind of fancy beet salad to go with my last burrata cheese ball — this turned out to be a non-problem because I left the cheese on the counter while I was thinking all this and the cat jumped up, seized the cheese ball in her little white teeth, and went running off to scarf it down in secret under the forsythias.

Anyway, I got to wondering which of my spices I got here in my house would be in the kitchen cabinet of your well-supplied Regency housewife or cook.

Up above there’s my spice cabinet, which I have over the sink because having it over the stove is harder on the spices, them getting heated up and damp from the steam and all. As you will see, there is a bit of a crowd of spices.

So what spices and herbs do I hold in common with my Regency housewife?

She would have had access to all the herbs that grew in hedgerows and kitchen gardens since the first modern people walked across a land bridge into the British Isles about 40,000 years ago … though they didn’t so much go in for kitchen garden at that time.

A Regency woman would have easily matched my pitiful little array of traditional herbs. See them pictured in a line: sage, rosemary, mint, thyme, and oregano. She would have called the oregano ‘wild marjoram’, just to make everybody’s life interesting.

The Regency housewife would have had many more of these traditional herbs at hand — dried or fresh parsley, (thus the ‘parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme’ that are headed to Scarborough Fair,) ordinary marjoram, dill, sweet basil, coriander, (of which more below,) fennel, garlic, scallions, mustard, saffron, and caraway. And she’d use herbs we don’t necessarily associate with everyday cuisine any more, like marigolds, lavender, roses, and violets, tansy, and angelica.

 

Speaking of coriander (and I add this because I find it charming and when was the last time you were charmed by an herb?):

 

The Plant that bears Coriander is cultivated in Gardens, upon the Account of its Seed, which is much us'd for Food, and Physic ; they are us'd in Comfits, Spirituous Liquors, and Beer, They are green upon the Plant, but grow whitish as they dry ; they are of an aromatic and very agreeable Taste and Smell; but for the rest of the Plant, it has an unpleasant Smell, like that of Buggs, and that is the Reason that 'tis neither us'd in Physic, nor Food.
                            A Treatise of All Sorts of Food, Louis Lémery, 1745

 

Now we come to the fine selection of spices that would have been imported into England in 1800. Me, I have nutmeg, ginger, (I have crystalized ginger also,) cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate, cloves, black pepper, and sesame oil. These would all have been readily available in the Regency … maybe a bit of a luxury, but one a lot of folks could indulge in. My two-centuries-ago cook could have had all those imported goodies and a double handful more that I don’t buy — tumeric, cassia, allspice, anise, caraway, sesame seeds, and mace ....

There are doubtless others I’m not calling to mind.

What else? Dried lemon peel, which she would probably have made for herself from imported lemons she bought in the market.

Salt, necessary to man from the dawn of time. Hers would have been made by the seashore in England.

And I have a bit of cherry cordial. The early 19th century cook would  probably have a number of liquors and used them with a freer hand than I do.

What do I have that wouldn’t have found a place in the Regency kitchen? My food dyes for one thing. These are synthetic formulations made from aromatic petroleum products. Not so 1800-ish.

 

And then there’s the exotics. My shelves hold a little flock of spices and herbs for dishing up Indian and Mexican foods. Lookit here. Red pepper, garam masala, cumin, cilantro, cardamom, paprika and soy sauce. In the 1800’s household it was still a bit early for the ordinary cook to be putting together curries, mulligatawny soup, and kedgeree. There was no stir-fry with snow-peas. Tex-Mex was not even on the horizon.

So there you have it. I peek into the cupboard of a London housewife in the past and it looks pretty familiar. If she glanced at my shelves it wouldn’t be all that strange.

 

Are you a spicy-foods person? What spices and herbs do you use a lot? Any new ones you’ve just discovered?

One random commenter will win a book of mine — any book of their choice, including the upcoming Rogue Spy if they are willing to wait 60 days till I get some copies.

Mary Jo Putney's Not Quite A Wife

Anne here, interviewing Mary Jo Putney about NOT QUITE A WIFE, the latest in the wonderful "Lost Lords" series — which goes on sale tomorrow. Mary Jo, congratulations on this release. Another excellent read.  

A starred review from Library Journal described NOT QUITE A WIFE thus: "A deeply caring, capable heroine who struggles with her feelings about violence and a ruthless, protective spymaster hero with a well-honed sense of justice gradually work through their differences to find common ground in this provocative, penetrating romance. Undeniable passion wars with clashing views on right and wrong in another memorable masterpiece from one of the genre's best. Gorgeously done."  

Kirkus Reviews said: "Elegant and tender; a compelling sweep of romance and adventure with a gratifying undertone of social justice elements."  

Sparky's Post Vanished into Wild Blue Yonder

Pat here:

Sherrie's computer has been eaten by malware. We were trying to scramble something together without spreading the virus, but the document has disappeared. It's been one of those weeks.  

Should the document miraculously reappear--along with all the wonderful new Sparky pics-- we'll try to get it up in the morning.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

 

Women Behaving Badly - the adventures of Moll Cutpurse

Nicola here. Last week I had the fabulous treat of a trip to Stratford-On-Avon to see the play “The Roaring Girl,” written by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, who were contemporaries of William Shakespeare. The poster for it is on the left. I love the Swan Theatre at Stratford; it is small and intimate with the stage projecting into the audience and a three-sided gallery. You feel transported back to the sort of theatre that 17^th century audiences would have visited, though probably these days we have more comfortable seats.

The Roaring Girl is the story of a character called Moll Cutpurse. The name Moll is a pun: as well as being short for Mary it was a word used to describe a young woman of disreputable character who has a reputation as a thief or “cutpurse.” The phrase The Roaring Girl is more often used to refer to “roaring boys”, the gallants who got drunk in taverns, roistered about London, got into fights, smoked, and generally behaved badly.

The ideal modest woman of the 17^th century was described in one conduct book as someone whose “home is her delight, at public plays she never will be seen and to be a tavern guest she hates.” Moll most decidedly does not fit this image with her men’s clothing, her smoking, drinking and swordfighting. Yet the play, written in 1611, is surprisingly sympathetic to Moll. She is portrayed as a woman determined to be her own person in a society that demands conformity. It can be construed as a proto-feminist piece. Moll is called a whore by those men who disapprove of her behaviour and want to control her, yet she is shown to be honest with a more powerful sense of morality than those who try to entrap her.

Breaking news: Dancing on the Wind audiobook

by Mary Jo

Yayyyy!  After numerous delays (I'm never going to produce an audiobook under a Mercury retrograde again!), the audio of my RITA winning Regency historical Dancing on the Wind (Book #2 ofthe Fallen Angels series) has now gone live on Audible.com  and should soon be up at Amazon and Apple as well.  It was recorded at the Audio Factory in Glastonbury, England, the same studio that produced the audiobook of The Bargain.  

 

I'll probably blog about this at greater length later, but I know some Word Wench regulars like audio, so I thought I'd mention it now.  Plus, I'm happy that it's available after the various delays.  If you like audiobooks, I hope you enjoy it!

MJP

 

by Mary Jo

We here at Word Wenches Central Command take words very seriously, but we tend to think more about the 19th century and earlier than about the 21st century.  My Webster's Collegiate does a pretty good job of telling me when words came into general English usage, and that suffices for my writing.

But we all had fun when Wench Susan told us about new words that the Oxford Dictionary has just decided to add to the canon.  Being as how romance writers don't get out much <G>, most of us didn't know half the words.  

Some are fairly self-explanatory, like "bro hug," which presumably describes the way manly men can touch each other without looking less manly. <G>

Duels and Divorce in High Places

Jo here. I became curious about divorce in the Regency, which as we all know was both difficult and expensive and remembered the complicated Wellesley/Paget business, whereupon I stumbled across a duel. The report gives a clear picture of how a duel might go, but first we need the back story. It does become a little complicated!

Henry, Lord Paget, shown right, who was married, fell in love with Lady Charlotte Wellesley who was also married.

In fact, she was married to one of Wellington’s brothers,  Henry Wellesley, shown left, which made the whole thing even messier as Paget was a crack cavalry officer but the C-in-C wouldn't use him.

She left her husband to live with Paget, and then her brother, Captain Cadogan, called Paget out, presumably for bringing her into disrepute. Apparently her husband, unlike his brother, wasn't at all warlike. From his portrait he certainly looks peaceable.

Some duels were hasty and/or over trivialities with no intention of great harm, though with pistols one never knew. This one was serious and some observers went to pains to give a clear account of it.

The Duel.

 

THE SPARKY REPORT #45

Greetings, Sparky fans! That cat has been getting into trouble big time. Every time I hear a thud or crash, I know who the culprit is. It's amazing how she can make a toy out of the most mundane things. Case in point: something that tears easily and makes a pleasing sound when doing so.

Yesterday, I bought a set of drinking glasses. When I got home, I unwrapped the glasses, leaving the cushioning newsprint on my desk. Sparky discovered it, and pretty soon I heard tearing and ripping. I grabbed my camera, and this is what I saw:

In the below picture, Sparky is getting ready to spit out a piece of newsprint. You can see it just below her nose.
But getting  p a p e r  stuck in her mouth doesn't stop Sparky from her mission to annihilate the entire batch of it.

However, Sparky's thirst for destruction was not slaked by all that  p a p e r. Before she bedded down for the night, she embarked on one more adventure with her lethal teeth: chewing the ears, nose, leg, and flank of my Sandicast collector's edition Doberman statuette. If Sparky keeps this up, she'll never have a problem with tartar build-up on her teeth!

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The Sparky Report #44

AAW: On our desks . . .

Anne here, answering a question asked by several people — do you keep anything special on or near your desk? We do, and we've decided to make it into a little fun competition, so you need to match description A, B, C, D, E, F and G with Wenches Mary Jo, Jo, Pat, Cara/Andrea, Susan, Nicola and me.

The first person who correctly matches the desk objects with the names will win a wenchly book of your choice (as long as it's still available.)

(**Post script: Alas, nobody guessed correctly, it was obviously harder than we thought. For the curious, the answers have been posted in the comments stream.)

A) North Carolina sand dollars from an author friend back in Charlotte, an ugly garden troll my Irish mother adored, and a mannikin from one of my St Louis buddies to dress up or down or let scream at the Forces. Special memories that have survived various moves…

 B) Lamb Chop, the adorable white stuffed lamb on the printer is from New Zealand--Rotorua, to be exact.  She fell in love with Wellington, the koala puppet who is cuddling her.  It's like one of those war bride romances where she forsook all she knew to go with her true love.  When they aren't cuddling, they like to argue the merits of their respective homelands.  For example, which country has the best glowworms????  Sometimes I hear them giggling together in the middle of the night…  

Home Sweet Home

Cara/Andrea here, As I sit here amidst piles of unpacked boxes and stuff to be sorted into its new places, I am breathing a sigh of relief that the ordeal of moving from one home to another is over. I’m usually able to stay on an even keel through all the inevitable storms and squalls that spring up in the course of Life. But this was incredible stressful. There is, of course, the physical process of sorting through your belongings and deciding what to keep and what is merely weighing you down. That can be emotional. However, far more emotional is both leaving a familiar place, where all your things have a regular place and surround you with a sense of order and continuity, and finding a new place where you feel you can create a sense of “home.” In some ways, change is good! It challenges you to reassess a lot about yourself things, and see things in a new light. But in some ways it’s also absolutely terrifying.

Which got me to thinking about moving in the Regency, especially for women. It suddenly occurred to me that “home” and the prospect of losing a secure place in the world, plays an integral part in many of Austen’s novels. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion—actual displacement from a familiar place or fear of losing it play a central role in the stories. Mansfield Park also has a strong theme of “home” as Fanny struggles to figure where and how she fits in.

Where is your place in the world? I had the freedom to decide I was ready for a change and then take independent action to make it happen, but for our Regency sisters, it wasn’t quite so simple. For one thing, few ladies had the financial means to make such decisions on their own. Unless they were lucky enough to have received a bequest from some rich relative of property or money, they had little hope of establishing themselves in their own place. Of course, if they were married, the situation became even stickier, as the legalities of the time made them little more than a husband’s property, like his horses and his hounds.

In the higher circles of English society, there was also the worry of a husband passing away without a male child, leaving his widow and daughters at the mercy of the heir, who by rights can toss them out on their ear. In this light, Mrs. Bennett’s obsession with marrying off her daughters—especially to a rich man who will take care of the rest of them—becomes a tad more sympathetic. Worry over the future was no trifling matter. Austen shows us this in Sense and Sensibility. The Dashwoods must make the best of being forced from their home when Dashwood’s son by his first marriage inherits the house. They are offered a cottage by distant relations, and must establish a new life. Their story, of course, has a happy ending, but I imagine that many real-life situations did not. Slowly sinking into genteel poverty was not uncommon. The sense of dislocation and helplessness must have been frightening and frustrating.

So ladies were pretty much dependent on making a making a good match or the goodwill of their family to care for them as spinsters or widows. Now, family dynamics likely haven’t changed much over the centuries. Relationships are, say we say complicated, and it’s the rare family whose interactions are nothing but sweetness and light. Conflicts and resentments can arise, making the hierarchy even more complex. A brother’s wife may resent the crowding and extra mouths to feed, or expect an unwed sister to serve as a nursery maid. An imperious grandmother may treat a poor relation as an unpaid servant, there to do her bidding at every hour of the day. Any female with spirit or a lively intellect could very feel stifled and frustrated by a lack of independence. For a gentry girl, an option could be seeking a position as a governess or paid companion, but that was in a sense simply jumping from the frying pan into the fire. For an aristocratic lady, there wasn’t even that choice—if she didn’t marry, she would likely find herself confined to world where the horizons were ever shrinking rather than expanding world.

So as I settle into my new digs, and surround myself with all the little things that are meaningful to me and create a sense of “home,” I reflect on how much as I love the Regency, I am glad to be living in the here and now. (But hey, I brought my oil lamps with me from the old house . . . there is something to be said for the best of both worlds!

So how about you? Have you ever moved, and did you find it as stressful as I did? What would you dislike most about living as a poor relation in a household? I would miss the privacy and the quiet time to read and reflect.

London Adventures!

Pat here:

In all my travels, I’ve never had the opportunity to spend more than a couple of days at a time in London. That’s barely enough to remember how the underground works and orient myself. This summer, we spent ten wonderful days basking in the history I write about.

THE SPARKY REPORT #44

Today I'm going to talk about the things that make Sparky unique. Specifically, I'm going to talk about Sparky's intense curiosity when anything new is brought into the house. The above Priority Mail box is an example. 

But first, a little background for anyone new visiting this blog:  as most of you know, I adopted Sparky when she was a 3-week-old orphan. (See details in the link at the end of this post.) She's a year old now, and healthy in all respects but one--she suddenly and inexplicably went blind last month. Prompt attention on my part, and diligent care on the part of two veterinarians, brought about a miraculous cure. Sparky has regained a good portion of her eyesight, but it came at a budget-wrecking cost.

This is when the Sparky Fan Club kicked into high gear, resulting in an outpouring of emotional and financial support from those who have come to love Sparky through my weekly reports. (There's a donation page for Sparky here) And thus, we come full circle to the reason for this post:  Sparky's intense curiosity. The following pictures show Sparky investigating a box that contained a gift from a Sparky fan--Theo, who posts comments on a regular basis. The gift came in a box, and Sparky immediately claimed the box for a toy. 

What an interesting box with interesting smells!

 

Oooh, crackly paper! So fun to tear off bits with my teeth.

Now that I've torn up the packing paper, I wonder what else is in here?

(Sniff, sniff, sniff) This box came from a home with a cat.

(Sniff, sniff) And dogs.

 

And a mailman. Such lovely smells!

Now, let's see how this box tastes! (Ed. note: please excuse the butt shots. Cats aren't noted for their modesty.)

On the same day Theo's gift arrived, Wench Susan King's Sparky-related gift also arrived. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures until I opened Theo's package.

And now, even more fun for Sparky! I just placed a box that had held Costco groceries on the floor, and already she is inside, sniffing away!

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The Sparky Report #35 - First Birthday

Conference with pics

Anne here, coming in very late -- with apologies. I'm battling with the effects of jet-lag, and as well, technology is currently not my friend. The good news is that finally my body has adjusted perfectly to Texas time. The bad news is, I'm back in Australia, so I'm still battling jet-lag. (That's me on RITA night)

I was only home two days -- just enough time to unpack, wash my clothes, deal with the 874 emails that had piled up in my absence, then pack again and get on a plane to Sydney, where the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference is this year. So last night at 7pm (which is Wednesday morning US time) I lay down on my hotel bed with a notepad and pen to plan this blog, and... you guessed it, I fell asleep. I woke briefly at 3 am, but forced myself to go back to sleep -- the sooner I can get back to normal hours the better.

Did I mention I'm in a hotel in Sydney now? A very comfortable and nice one too, in the Sydney Olympic area — when it gets light I'll take a photo from my room. But the last person here must have had to get up at 4.30 am. How do I know? Because that's when the alarm clock went off.

I managed to find the button to shut the rotten thing off -- blind luck, I thought -- my eyes were barely open -- and I drifted back to sleep. Unfortunately it was one of those clocks where the alarm sneakily goes off again 10 minutes later, because it knew I'd gone back to sleep, didn't it? And it's louder and more insistent the second time. And this time the search for the right button involved glasses and lights (and a little bit of quiet cursing.)

So now I'm up, awake (sort of) and sitting in the pre-dawn dark in Sydney, writing a very late blog that I fear isn't going to be up to the usual wenchly standards.

Texas, where I went for the RWA conference, was brilliant. I was lucky from the moment I arrived. After my long trip from Australia, I arrived in San Antonio somewhat of a zombie. When I went to check in, the hotel clerk looked a bit worried -- "You booked a room with a king bed," she said.
"Yes, that's right."
"We're a bit short of king beds at the moment."
I told her I didn't mind what kind of a bed I had, that I'd been traveling for the last 26 hours without sleep and that any bed would be just fine by me.
So she gave me a little smile and said if I didn't mind 2 double beds, she could upgrade me. I didn't mind at all, of course. I staggered up to my room, intending to collapse in whatever bed was there, and I found a room with a balcony and this view waiting for me.

Gorgeous, isn't it? I stood there for ages, peering out and grinning and trying to work out what various landmarks were. It put such a complete spin on my mood that after a shower, I felt so completely refreshed and happy that instead of crawling into bed, I met some friends and went out to dinner. (Brazilian — a total, delicious meat-fest.)

The second lucky part for me was that I'd been warned the weather would be unbearably hot and humid. I'm pretty okay with heat but a total wimp with humidity. San Antonio was hot — 100 F (38C) but only about 40% humidity, which didn't bother me at all, so I was able to do a lot of walking and exploring. San Antonio is a beautiful place. I went here. Recognize it?

Maybe this is a more recognizable angle. 

And I caught up with so many people. The first evening after I arrived I went out to dinner (Mexican) with PJ Ausdenmore, of the Romance Dish. We walked down along the Riverwalk to this place. PJ's a romance reader, blogger and reviewer, and she and I have been long-time friends since she was introduced to my books by the wonderful Janga, reader, writer, reviewer, blogger and regular wenchly reader (waving to Janga.) PJ and I drank margaritas and talked and ate (chilli rellenos) and talked some more and it was a wonderful night.

The next day the conference started in earnest, and I went to the Librarians' Day luncheon, where Barbara Samuel made a beauful speech that had most of the audience wiping away tears at times.  I caught up with the lovely Kristan Higgins, who I'd met in Australia the year before.

The next day I attended a heap of good workshops and in the evening I hooked up with another group of writer friends, in which wenches Jo and Mary Jo were included — these were mostly people I'd met at NINC (novelists Inc) and I hadn't seen some of them for ages. So, old friends and some new ones.

The literacy signing was a blast — so many people came up to me and said nice things about my books. As usual I was sitting next to Heather Graham and she's always so lovely. Opposite me were RITA finalists in the historical category, Elizabeth Hoyt and NZer Frances Housden. And I managed to race around and catch up with some other authors I only ever see at conference.

People might imagine there's a lot of competition between writers, but honestly, I find the conferences so warm and friendly and supportive, it's a joy to be there and to meet friends I've made at previous conferences. You can click with someone at a conference, and with email, the friendships can ripen so that by the next conference, that person is like an old friend, even though you've met them at only two conferences.

A highlight of the week was attending the Harlequin party as the guest of my friend Carol Marinelli, who was being presented with an award for writing 75 books. Such a fabulous achievement, and I know how hard she works. I was so proud of her. She's the one in the middle.

I attended parties given by Kensington (which published the wenchly Christmas Anthology) and my publisher, Berkley, as well as having lunch with my editor and the editorial director of Berkley. Other highlights were having a quiet evening in my room talking and having a glass of wine and talking with the other wenches attending -- Mary Jo, Nicola and Jo.

One lunchtime I raced down to the foodcourt to snatch some food and found myself sharing a table with two new young writers — one a golden heart finalist. I love meeting new writers — their excitement and passion for writing is so infectious. Another highlight was the ANZ (Australia/NewZealand) breakfast — Mary Jo and I were meeting for breakfast and she suggested I bring along a few of my aussie friends. I told her there was likely to be a mob — and she said she didn't mind, there was. It was a lovely breakfast and everyone had a great time.

From left: Kelly Hunter, Lilian Darcy,Nalini Singh, Stephanie Laurens, Carol Marinelli, Mary Jo Putney (honorary ANZer) and Golden heart finalist and newly contracted writer, Vanessa Barneveld. Also attending but not in the picture were Jo Beverley, Frances Housden, Melanie Scott, Trish Morey - and I might have forgotten one of two -- sorry if I have.

The RITA night was a blast ‚— I was sitting at the Berkley table with my editor and the Berkley editorial director and Sherry Thomas and others. With 17 finalists in the group, I wasn't too nervous, so I enjoyed the night, even though I didn't win a RITA. I love awards night, and the speeches and excitement, and I was thrilled because several of my friends won a RITA — including Susanna Kearsley, Leah Ashley a fairly new, young Australian writer (that's her in the pic) and my good friend Jane Porter, who I've known for years. So we celebrated the RITAs in a group. 

Bizarrely the Marriott hotel bar didn't have champagne available to buy -- how crazy is that? After a huge awards ceremony. I tried to buy some bottles to share with my friends, and all they had were two (2!) tiny bottles, smaller than a can of soda — for eight people. We managed to celebrate anyway.

After the conference I spent a couple more days in San Antonio, moving to the Mokara hotel, which was simply gorgeous. I was lucky there, too and got a beautiful room with this view.I enjoyed every aspect of my stay there and will stay there again, if I go back to San Antonio.

And I left the USA with these two souvenirs of a very happy time in Texas. (See below -- that's a bootjack between them. I'll be wearing these boots at the aussie conference this weekend.)

So there it is, a very brief outline of my conference. And now I'm about to shower and go down for breakfast at the Aussie conference.

This afternoon I'm involved in a debate, an entertainment that will be held with afternoon tea (cream cakes etc) as part of the Author Day. Our topic is "That Alpha Heroes are better than Beta Heroes" — and I'm first speaker on the negative side, arguing for beta heroes, along with Amy Andrews and Sarah Wendell. Our opposition is Cherry Adair, Jennifer St George and Christina Brooke. Wish us luck.

So where are you now, and what are you doing?

Claimed by the Laird - Scottish Brides Book 3

Nicola here, celebrating the publication of Claimed by the Laird, the third and final book in my Scottish Brides trilogy.

Writing a Scottish-set Regency series has been great fun. It’s allowed me to mix romance, danger, adventure, pirates and whisky smugglers with wonderful settings, feisty heroines and gorgeous heroes. I’ve been able to draw on my many trips to the Highlands and to do lots of research into everything from bagpipes to shipwrecks. I’ve flown to Fair Isle and walked the walls of ruined castles. I love my job! 

Particularly lovely has been the reader feedback; I’ve already been asked if there will be any more Scottish Brides books and because I always enjoy revisiting a series, I’d never say never. There are some characters who are already asking for a sequel… One reader told me that they wanted to join the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society, the club that two of my heroines belong to. I'd like to be a member too!

The idea for the Bluestocking Society arose from my reading about the Scottish enlightenment and the discussions and intellectual meetings that took place mainly in Edinburgh. The Poker Club, the Select Society and the Oyster Club were examples of real Scottish clubs where scientists, writers and thinkers met to discuss ideas and eat delicacies such as salt haddock. These were male-dominated (as in the picture) but it struck me that well-to-do, independent minded women could also form their own society. The members of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society discuss books and reading but they also have an improper side and an interest in activities as various as life drawing and belly dancing!

Words -Historical

Hi, Jo here, busy, busy, busy. And behind.

All the regular Wench readers will know that Anne, Nicola, Mary Jo and I were away at the RWA conference in San Antonio. For me and Nicola that meant jet lag as well as introvert exhaustion. I used to think that introvert meant someone who hid away from people, but according to the Myers-Briggs personality test, it means we give out energy when we're with people. Once I heard about that it explained why I'd go to conferences, have a great time, but find myself back in my room reading a book. Refueling. In testing, nearly all writers turn out to be introverts, which isn't surprising as we spend a lot of time alone with out inner world.

Extroverts, in MB, take in energy when they're with people, so tend to choose professions involving a lot of contact with people. I haven't read any data on this but I suspect that extrovert writers are the ones who love to write in a busy coffee shop and seek out as many speaking engagements and media opportunities as they can, or perhaps even have a part time job when they don't need the money.

Any idea which you are?

THE SPARKY REPORT #43

Just look at those big beautiful eyes with properly dilated pupils! Ain't they purtty? When you consider Sparky Tabasco narrowly escaped permanent blindness, you can see why I'm fixated on the eyes!

Last Thursday, July 31, Sparky had her follow-up visit with the Seattle eye specialist. He said the lesions in her eyes have healed over, but the scarring will affect Sparky's eyesight for the rest of her life. Here we are in the examing room, waiting for the vet.

Sparky, the perfectly behaved patient.

The vet also said the swelling of her optical nerves has gone down so that they look normal. On the whole, she has improved since her first visit 3 weeks ago. However, I expressed concern that her eyesight had definitely deteriorated after reducing her medication per their instructions. Obviously, the lower dosage isn't working, so the vet bumped up her dosage a little and I'm to call him in 2 weeks to tell him how Sparky 's doing on the higher dosage.

Otherwise, how is Sparky doing? Need you ask??? Sparky is being Sparky. Today I was washing veggies from my garden, prior to making a fresh green salad for dinner, and when my back was turned, Sparky jumped into the kitchen sink and poked her nose in the colander where my veggies were draining. Naughty girl! As always, my camera was within reach, so I snapped a picture before removing her.

Snoopy kitty checking out the veggies! (The temporary lattice gates in the background are to keep Sparky out of the living room where there are pitfalls for a partially blind cat.)

One drawback to Sparky's compromised eyesight is that she doesn't always see danger approaching. Twice she has lost hair from her tail when my wheeled chair has rolled over her tail.

Tail hairs, casualties of an accidental meeting with a rolling chair.

 Thankfully, Sparky is quick to forgive and allows me to cuddle her in remorse after I've rolled over her tail. In fact, if I crackle some plastic in my hand or wad up a ball of paper, she quickly forgets the lost tail hairs and waits eagerly for me to throw the "toy." Sparky is absolutely crazy about crackly plastic used as a tamper-proof seal on beverages, vitamins, etc. Her second favorite toy is a wadded up ball of paper. Both are irresistible.

Oh boy! The plastic seal from a bottle of Starbucks mocha frappuccino!

 

Just captured a wadded up ball of paper.

Sparky is so crazy about paper balls and plastic seals that the crackle will pull her out of a sound sleep.

Hark! Do I hear the crackle of plastic?!!

Sparky won't let a little thing like blindness slow her down. She is an inspiration of how to live life to the fullest, despite handicaps.

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